Creating booklet

[whamart]

Hi

I wish to create a booklet that will be stappled together. For example if there the booklet had 12 pages I would need to print 3 A4 sheets. Each sheet would be divided into 2 columbs. Giving a total of 4 pages per 2 printed A4 sheets when printed on both sides

Now if these A4 sheets are stapled and then folded in the middle. How do I get openoffice to print them out in the right order.

for Example sheet 1 on the right side would be page 1 and the left side would be side 12

I hope I described this well...

[Guest]

Activate the "Brochure" mode in /tools/options/text document/print to get what you want

[avtgis]

[rathee]

hi

You are right, I am also looking for this option. Tried many different ways, but not successful.

regards

[schelle]

Hi,

I recently printed out booklets for my wedding which were very successful - after some fiddling around - this is not an elegant solution but it worked well. (I tried the brochure option in the tools menu but eventually gave up.) If my explanation is not clear enough let me know and I'll try again : )

1. set your page to landscape and divide it into two columns (make sure you add some spacing between them for the staples - you can do this in the middle of the column format dialog box - Format/Columns)

2. write your text & graphics straight through from start to finish, making sure the material for each brochure page fits onto a half-page and does not overlap onto a new page. Don't worry about page order at this stage.

3. open a new Open Office text document & format the page in exactly the same way as your first one (landscape, columns, margins etc.)

4. the tricky bit! Copy and paste half-pages from your first document to the second, in the correct order for the brochure (eg first page = half-page 12 & half-page 1; second page = half-page 2 & half-page 11; third page = half-page 10 & half-page 3; fourth page = half-page 4 & half-page 9; fifth page = half-page 8 & half-page 5; sixth page = half-page 6 & half-page 7). I hope that makes sense

5. SAVE the new document! (you don't want to have to do all that pasting twice!)

5. print. (My printer does not automatically print double sided pages, and I needed 50 copies of the booklet, so I printed 50 copies of the first page, turned them over and printed 50 copies of the second page; then 50 copies of the third page on new paper, turned them over and printed 50 copies of the fourth page, and the same for the fifth and sixth pages.)

6. fold, collate and staple (or tie with a pretty blue ribbon) and voila 50 wedding booklets... or advertising brochures... or whatever you're doing : )

I hope this helps!!!
_________________
"Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air."
(Carl Sandberg)

[J. Till]

Here's a suggestion, even though I have not tried it in OO Writer. Still, it should work. (I have used a similar method In MS Word alot.) Does this actually work in Writer?

Follow Shelle first two listed steps. Only one OO document would be needed. Make as many pages as you need. All the pages would have two columns. Place a text frame (text box in Word) in each column on each page.. Then LINK the text frames in the correct order for your printing purposes. Any text that is typed (or pasted ) into text frame 1 should flow into the next (as you have linked them) text frame until they are all filled up. Each page (text frame) should be editable and text will just flow to the next page (frame).

Of course, you have to know the page total before you start. Make a mock-up if there is any doubt about printing order.

If you want booklet footnotes (these are not Writer footnotes) jst make the text frame a little shorter, and type whatever you want at the bottom of each booklet page (different than Writer page). These " footnotes" will be outside the text frames.

I am waiting for an OO CD to arrive to try this. Any feedback is appreciated.

J. Till

[Guest]

The much easier way to print a booklet is to simply lay out your pages normally, in the appropriate order, but with a font size slightly less than twice as large as you actually want.

Then, from the print dialog, click "properties" and choose 'landscape'. Click OK.

Next, still in the print dialog, click "options" and select "brochure". Then deselect either 'right' or 'left'. Click OK.

When you click "print", OO will ask you if you want to save the changes to your message body. Assure it that you DO NOT.

You will have one side of your pages printed

Then, just feed the paper back in reversed, and do the same thing over again. Except this time if you printed the 'right' sides, you'll print the 'lefts' and vice versa.

Voila.

[william.geldhof]

you choose in your printer options A4 - landscape
with the stylist you create a page layout a5 portrait and create your document as such.

when you print, in options you indicate that you want to print a brochure.
you first print your left pages.

then you order your pages and put your already printed pages back into the printer.
print again but reindicate that you print a brochure but now you print the right pages.

the problem is the order. simple trick is. Keep in mind that on page1 of your booklet there's always page 2 on the back.
so the first page your printer is taking, there is page 1 printed on. So the first page you put back in the bin is page 1, but reversed

that works

great program !!!
_________________
William
OOo 2.2 on Fedora 5
OOo 2.3.1 on Windows XP
Neooffice 2.2

[LeslieL]

I am finally a happy camper . OOo does a much nicer and easier job of printing booklets than MS Word once you get the hang of it.

Maybe I'm the only one who took some time to figure it out, but in case I'm not here's what I discovered.

Create the document like a normal one, but use larger fonts than normal - 16pt produces readable results.
Even if you're using North American letter sized paper (8.5" x 11"), set up your default page style to A4 size.
Tell the printer you'll be printing to landscape orientation, and to A4 paper (even it it's letter size).
And, of course, in Options choose brochure printing.

Kelvin's write-up on printing to brochures is very good and clear (www.onlineconnections.com.au/public/openoffice/brochureprinting), but I couldn't get at it directly - his host seemed to be down. I had to go to Google and use their cached page. And Kelvin uses A4 paper, like everyone in the civilized world, so I had to fiddle to find out how to handle 8.5 x 11.

[georgec]

My success with printing booklets is this:

OOo 1.1.1
HP LaserJet 1200 series with the rear door closed on the printer so the pages come out face down.
Create my document as normal with font size of 10 in portrait mode.
Change the setting for my printer to landscape mode.
Change the print options for OOo to check only right pages and brochure.
Remove the printed pages keeping them in their face down position and placing them back in the printer tray without rotating.
Change the print options for OOo to check left pages, reversed and brochure.

Works perfectly!

George Corder

[padmavyuha]

For what it's worth, the brochure process is a bit more tangled if you're using Ooo for X11/NeoOffice/J (Mac OSX).

Invoke the Print dialog, either through File>Print, or Cmd-P, or the buttonbar Print button (don't use the Print button if you're using NeoOffice/J instead of X11 - that bypasses the Options dialog).

The you can choose Brochure and Left or Right pages from the Options screen (click on the Options button within the Print dialog) and you can choose Landscape from the Properties screen (click on the Properties button next to the printers list).

You'll need to do this twice, once for left and once for right pages. The reason you need to set this from within the Print dialog is that sometimes setting Landscape in the Printer Settings dialog isn't remembered by the time you go to the Print dialog.

- padmavyuha

[lands.wilmoth]

[Thulemanden]

I succeeded like this:

Create document as A5 portrait mode (adjust margins to your desires but be generous).
Change the setting for my printer to landscape mode, Important: Select A4!*
Change the print options for OOo to check only right pages and brochure
Print and remove the pages, turning them 180 degrees horizontally and vertically.
Change the print options for OOo to check left pages, reversed and brochure.

using an Epson Stylus CX3200.

*If I selected A5 the text would be decreased (zoomed out) and not fill out the a5 format but a reduced a5 format.

[lands.wilmoth]

The steps you outlined are the ones I perform exactly, with the exception that I am using OO.org Draw (and thus Print|Options must be Brochure & Front and, after rotating the pages, Brochure & Back). Unfortunately, the margins are still not right. They should be 1.5cm on all four sides of the A4 and 3cm on the inside between the two side-by-side A5s.

I've opened a thread on this in the OpenOffice.org Draw forum that gives more detail regarding my setup and the problem:

http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=28445
_________________
Lands Wilmoth

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)